Some tsunamis, such as the one that struck Tohoku, Japan, on 11 March 2011, may be amplified by submarine landslides.

PHOTO: KYODO NEWS/AP PHOTO

Underwater landslides are an underappreciated source of dangerous tsunamis, and the conditions that create them are not well understood. Løvholt et al. developed a landslide model to simulate a few geologically recent underwater events and assess the differences in tsunami potential. They found that differences in the failure mechanisms could potentially explain the differences in tsunami genesis between similar-sized events. This includes the possibility that very large underwater mass transfers may not produce a tsunami at all.